NEW DELHI: The October 15 Assembly polls in
Maharashtra would see ‘a new arithmetic’ emerging, BJP leader and Union
Minister Prakash Javadekar said here on Wednesday. “These elections are going
to be different… a new arithmetic will be seen. People will vote for good
governance,” he told reporters.

The two long-standing alliances around which the
state’s politics was revolving for the last many years — Congress-NCP and Shiv
Sena-BJP — broke up last month. “Congress and NCP looted Maharashtra for 15
years and people will ensure they don’t return to power,” he said.

Asked to comment on reports of ‘secret deal’ between
BJP and NCP, Javadekar said, “These claims are absolutely false. It was BJP which
fought against the corruption of the Congress-NCP regime.”

Taking on NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Javadekar said,
“Pawar practices secular politics for four years and nine months, and for the
remaining three months (ahead of the elections), he practices casteist
politics.”

Asked about Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray’s
reported remarks that the 25-year-old Sena-BJP alliance would not have split
had Rajnath Singh been the BJP president, Javadekar said, “I don’t want to
comment. We tried our best to salvage the alliance. Now that stage has passed
and the train has left the platform.”

BJP will undertake a statewide poll campaign which
will use digital media, street plays, folk arts. There would be 150 video vans.
‘Poll alerts’ will be sent to three crore mobile phone subscribers, he added.

“Our theme will be ‘Rashtra Ke Saath Maharashtra’
(Maharashtra with the nation), he said, adding, “voters have given us power in
Centre. Now we are asking them to give us power in Maharashtra too.” Javadekar
also released BJP’s poll campaign song, sung by Swapnil Bandodkar.